Boat Snack
by A Wordsmith
Summary: He was punished for trying to help mortals. Sent away to live on that pile of pebbles for exactly one thousand years. One thousand years without food, water, or a way out.
1. Arrival

He grins at the green stone in his palm. It's not much for something with the power to create life itself. Bright green, somewhat see through, interesting little swirling design. He closes his hand.

It's been a long run to get this little devil, and he's not letting it go.

It's only when ash touches his face that he realizes something is wrong. He looks up.

He is Maui, hero of all, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea. That may be the only reason he doesn't scream.

It's nearly as tall as a mountain, made of rough black stone and blood of lava. It howls at him with its gaping face.

He doesn't know what it is, but he's got a pretty good idea of what it's here for.

Maui tightens his grip on his fishhook, grits his teeth, and leaps into the air.

Whipping his hook down, he transforms. Feathers whistle in the wind as he darts upward. The beast roars at him.

He dodges the hand. It's not far enough away to be comfortable - it's much closer than normal. He's rusty. He spent too long planning this thing out.

The fingers of the hand skim the water. They flicker and go dark and the monster screams. But he only has a second to think about that before the other smacks him out the sky.

It is hot like fire and hard like stone. It burns and stings and throbs all at the same time.

He looses his grip on the heart and his fishhook. It feels like someone wrenched them from his hands.

He's sailing through the air.

It's only when he realized he's been flying for hours that he knows something is up. That him being hit from the sky wasn't an accident.

It's then he hits face first into a mountain.

He's unconscious. First time for everything.

He spends the first year recovering.

The demigod of the wind and sea isn't just a title. He's immortal, which means he can't die. But injuries and everything else are fair game. If he gets split up into a bunch of tiny Maui chunks, he has to live out the rest of his life in utter agony. But he doesn't die.

He can hardly move. It's agony.

Every part is covered in burns from the fiery lava hand. His hair is completely singed off. There are black, sooty marks on the inside of his eyelids. Every bone in his face and neck is broken from his hit on the mountain.

On the dawn of his second year, he twitches a finger and counts it as an accomplishment.

It's another three before he's able to stand.

But all of the time laying in the full force of the sun on sharp rocks and pointed edges has given him time to think.

Why is he here? Why was he struck so purposely from the sky? Why was his hook taken away from him?

The answer lies in the small green stone that is wherever his hook is.

Ta Fiti's heart. The cursed object. But a Goddess's heart, her soul, her power.

This is, he decides, the gods' punishment.

The sun seems to nod at him.

But he refuses to bow to their will of trying to lock him in this island.

His eyes are small and shriveled - or, at least, they feel that way - so he becomes nocturnal, only waking up at night. It's easier than trying to see in the blaring sun.

He lays there, blinking and wincing for a long while. But when the sun sets he begins.

It's small at first - pushing up with his back, pulling up with his abs. He's sitting.

There must be a broken rib or something in there, because his chest throbs. He ignores it.

Putting his hand on a nearby rock, he pushes himself to his feet.

His legs damn near give out from under him, and he bites his tongue to keep from crying out.

His first step is a half limp, half stumble. He hates how weak he is.

But he quickly figured out where he is. A crator. A Maui-shaped crator made by him slamming down onto earth.

It takes him four days to muster the strength to get out.

Another three to recover.

The island is tiny. He can walk all the way around in less than an hour, human speed. That is, after the week that it took to finally fix his final broken rib.

But even though the ocean stretches on endlessly in either direction and he's tempted to start swimming, his chest rumbles.

It's been five years since he's last eaten.

He wonders why he hadn't noticed it before. His stomach, now that he's noticed it, is howling and begging and screaming for food. The longest he's ever been before is one month as he was stuck in Lalioti, and he ate an entire school of fish later.

There are no animals on this island, and the only plants are grass.

It's only a day before he gives in and starts to eat the greens.

It's only a day more when he starts puking.

He can't survive on grass, and he's already eaten every scrap on the island.

The ocean is bright and cold. It's salt water.

Though his tongue is dry and shriveled, he cannot drink it. There are no springs on this island, and that's about the moment when it's called a 'filthy pile of pebbles' in his mind.

He needs food. He would almost cut off a finger or toe if he knew he would grow it back. It's been five years and about a month. He's counting every day now, carving a line in the rocks as the sun rises.

Maybe he'll make it in the pattern of his fishhook.

Fishhook.

Fish!

Surely there are fish by this island, and fish means food.

But there are no trees to make traps or lines or anything. He'd already thought of building a boat.

It's about a minute of dithering before he plunges in with his arms open.

He's only going neck deep - he doesn't quite feel strong enough to swim - but his gaze scans everything around him.

The ground is a light sand that sticks to his toes.

There are no fish.

Desperate, he searches every side of the island. He doesn't sleep. He barely blinks.

There are _no_ _fish_.

He needs food.

He can survive without it but he _can't_. He's never gone long without food before. His appetite is too great.

He gives up. It may take him a year, but he will swim out and find something to eat.

The gods don't care what he decides.

 **Hey everyone! Little Moana fanfic for ya'll! I'm planning on making this more than a oneshot, with short little chapters talking about every couple of years or every couple hundred. He did spend a thousand years trapped there, after all.**

 **Anyway! Please tell me of any chapter ideas you have!**

 **Please read and review!**

 **Frost OUT!**


	2. Attempt

It's a day before he works up the courage.

He spent most of it laying next to the ocean, still not having enough energy to walk around. If he struggled to move, how could he swim across the ocean to find another island?

Well.

He didn't really have to breathe. If he got too tired, he could always take a rest on the bottom of the ocean. It would take him a while but there would be food at the end of it all.

That was all he needed, and he stood up. A step toward the water. One at a time.

It was when he got there that he realized he hadn't quite thought this through.

He's never really swam before. As a human.

He was quite fond of his shark form. Able to swim quickly and scare any fish in his path. It was smooth, sleek, powerful. Like a demigod should be.

Though he sometimes also used a fish form too. It was smaller.

But he didn't _swim_.

His stomach grumbled loudly and his legs shook.

Was he even strong enough to swim?

He didn't have a choice anymore.

It took him a minute or two to dip his feet in the water. It was cold, cold enough to make his legs shake.

He didn't have any fat anymore. He couldn't protect himself from the chills of night. He didn't have any muscles now, either. Five years of laying on the ground hadn't done him any good.

Now he was ankle deep, and he was still moving. There were still no fish.

It was getting more and more difficult to move. The water rose up to his chest, then his neck, then his mouth. He hadn't remembered how hard it was to move in water.

He took one more step and the water covered his mouth.

Holding his breath, he pushed off he bottom of the ocean and started swimming. Light, slow, really only moving his legs. He kept his head above the water.

He was used to breathing, too.

Farther and farther. He was moving away from the island. The ocean dropped below him.

He started to move his arms, cleaving the water in front of him.

His feet started to fall.

Then his legs.

Then his chest.

Then his head.

Something hit his back and shoved him underwater.

It was the monster's hand. Something huge grabbed onto his neck and forced him below the water. He screamed.

The thing's fingers tightened around his throat and oh god he couldn't get any air he was going to _die_

He hit the bottom of the ocean and passed out.

When he woke up, two weeks later, he started to choke.

His throat was swollen, swelling out to twice the healthy size.

Desperate, he pushed off the bottom and started to float upward. It was slow. He flickered in and out of consciousness.

His head broke the surface of the water and he tried to draw in breath.

Nothing happened.

He slipped below the water again.

Two hours later, he collapsed on the beach of the island. His shoulders tried to heave, tried to get him to recover.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't give oxygen back to his limbs. Couldn't do _anything_ that he was supposed to.

He managed to lay on his back and stare upward. There was a painful rock right between his shoulders. He didn't have the energy to move.

Five years ago, he could have done a backflip from laying down. He was so powerful. With his hook by his side and the gods' approval from above, he was unbeatable.

He was so far from that now it was laughable.

Barely able to move.

Not able to escape from the island the gods had flung him on.

The _thing_ that stopped him was definitely their doing. What would a punishment be if he could get away?

After an hour of not being able to move, he was able to sit up. That was an accomplishment. Before, he'd had to wait a year before being able to move.

He tried to scream up at the gods, curse them in every way he knew how.

No air passed between his lips.

He couldn't talk.

His neck bulged and throbbed and closed off his airway. Any mortal would have died already.

He glared at the stars up above. They glittered coldly now, angrily. He found no comfort in their light.

There was a goddess of the stars. Tala. He had known her well and talked often. But she was just as willing to betray him as everyone else.

What a demigod he was.

Chosen by the gods and imprisoned by them. Smacked out of the air. Recovering for five years. Drowning in the ocean. Unable to speak.

His chest heaved and then he was crying. Crocodile tears, huge and fat, spilled down his face and landed on his hands. His shoulders shook.

It was the first, but it would be the last.

He would eventually run out of water to cry with.

 **Well, I got this idea during Maui's song 'You're Welcome'. One of his lines is 'Cause Maui can do everything but float!'**

 **But, in trying to escape Moana, he was all to ready to jump off the boat and try to swim away.**

 **So it must have been something around the island that made him unable to float.**

 **And then I remembered that he was trapped on the island. So what if it was the gods?**

 **Yay! More sadness for Maui!**

 **Anyway! Send ideas this way!**

 **Please read and review!**

 **Frost OUT!**


	3. Anger

He is still crying.

It is silent, though, his throat throbbing and aching and burning all at once. His chest quivers. It cannot shake.

He doesn't have the air to move his lungs like that.

Its around noon when he starts to move, slowly clenching his toes, then his fingers, then his legs, then his arms, then his chest. Its a relaxation technique.

It doesn't work.

He stands up, legs shaking slightly. He is weak. So, so weak.

He wouldn't be weak if he had his hook.

Slow steps move him away from the water. He cannot handle the monster that lives within the waves, the beast that tried to drown him and tear his throat to shreds.

A loose stone catches his feet and he is falling.

He lands on his back. It would've knocked the breath out of his lungs if he would have had any.

He looks up.

There is a mountain.

It's teeny-tiny compared to the one that opens Lalotai, but it's tall enough he couldn't see al of it standing up. But now, laying on his back, he sees its entirity. There are several hash marks along the side. Five of them.

When did he start counting in years?

Some little voice in his head tells him the answer, and he ignores it.

He pushes up to his shaky, unsteady feet. Feet that could once carry him all the way to the stars and back. Send him gliding over the clouds at the scaled talons of a hawk. Make him shoot through the oceans as powerful shark flippers. Run him over the ground as an unbeatable lion.

The memories strike him with the same force as the monster, and his chest siezes. He shakes his head.

There is a crevice only twenty feet from him.

A slight alcove, only as deep as his arm. But just a few inches taller than him, and made of the same light brown rock as everything else.

He takes a few more steps forward and collapses inside of it.

What is he now?

A pitiful excuse for a demigod.

A creature tucked away on an inescapable island.

A-

A-

 _A human child tossed into the sea_.

With a silent roar, he picks up a rock by his feet and slams it onto the rock.

A shard falls away.

He stops. His eyes are narrowed beyond anger and his arms shake with fury. With a clenched hand, he picks up the rock piece.

It is something between large and small. The size of his palm, a strange mixture of flat and choppy.

He has broken something the gods gave him.

There is a grin spreading over his face that is nothing like he's ever had before. He hefts the first rock he picked up and stands. His legs are solid now, thick as tree trunks. Reality bends in his vision.

He heaves his mighty fishhook onto a statue of the gods' faces.

It splinters under his touch.

He does it again.

And again.

He chips away the mountain. Day after day. He's been there for two weeks now. Day in and day out.

There is now, instead of an alcove, a cave. One big enough for him o easily walk through, but only about as deep as two of his standing shoulder to shoulder. He has measured many times over.

He is far from done.

There are muscles on his arms now. Tiny. Nothing compared to what he once had. But they shine there in his sweat, and as he moves they move with him.

He slams the rock into the mountain again.

More and more breaks beneath his fury.

His anger eventually starts to die.

No.

Not die. It has started to draw back, to take its rage farther beneath his skin. It folds its wings and sheaths its claws somewhere in the center of his heart. The one part of his heart that has always belonged to the gods that saved him as he drowned in the waves.

He snaps out of it and hits his leg as he swings his rock.

A light sweat and then he starts to look around. His mouth falls open, and air trickles in. The swelling has gone down.

He stumbles out of the cave, legs shaking. How long has he been doing this?

The cave is so deep that he cannot see the end through the darkness. Though that may be because it's night.

He hefts the rock in his hand. It is broken down, the edges rough and sharp. Like he used to be.

He looks at the muscles on his arms and legs. They are smaller than a human's', even a weak one. He has always grown muscles slower.

But when the gods come back for him, he needs to be strong.

He walks back into the cave.

They will need their Maui back. He will only be here for another year, two at the most. They need him strong again.

They need him strong.

They need _him_.

He is their champion, their immortal demigod. They shaped him with their powers. They spent twenty years of their immortal lives raising him.

It's almost enough to convince him.

 **This was a hard chapter to write. I honestly only had two ideas when I started to fic, and I'm starting to splutter. The years might start to go faster, but don't worry. I'll eventually get to the end of the thousand years and a very non-canon meeting with Ta Fiti. Ooooo, I'm excited for that. XD**

 **But anyway, if you have any ideas for this fic, please tell me! What do you want me to put Maui through?**

 **Please read and review!**

 **Frost OUT!**


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